Half a Century eBook

“Do you remember a man there, that every one
said was going to die, and you said he wouldn’t?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m the fellow.”

I looked at him inquiringly, and said:

“Well, did you die?”

He burst into uproarious laughter, and replied:

“No, but I’m blamed if I wouldn’t,
if you hadn’t come along.”

I passed on, left him leaning against the wall finishing
his laugh, and saw or heard of him no more.

It was but a few days after he passed out of my knowledge
that news came of the death of Gen. Lowrie. It
was the old story, “the great man down,”
for he died in poverty and neglect, but with his better
self in the ascendent. His body lies in an unmarked
grave, in that land where once his word was law.

Pondering on his death, I thought of that country
boy going to his father’s house, with the life
restored by one he knew not, even by name, and the
going home of that mature man, who thought he knew
my inmost soul, and with whose political death I was
charged. Only the wisdom of eternity can determine
which, if either, I served or injured. To the
one, life may lack blessing, to the other, death be
all gain.

CHAPTER LXVI.

MEET MISS DIX AND GO TO FREDERICKSBURG.

I sat down stairs, for the first time after a two
weeks’ illness, when Georgie Willets, of Jersey
City, came in, saying:

“Here is a pass for you and one for me, to go
to Fredericksburg! A boat leaves in two hours,
and we must hurry!”

For several days the air had shuddered with accounts
of the terrible suffering of our men, wounded in the
battle of the Wilderness; and a pall of uncertainty
and gloom hung over the city.

I made a tuck in a queen’s-cloth dress, donned
it, selected a light satchel, put into one side a
bottle of whiskey and one of sherry, half a pound
of green tea, two rolls of bandage and as much old
table-linen as packed them close; put some clothing
for myself in the other side, and a cake of black
castile soap, for cleansing wounds; took a pair of
good scissors, with one sharp point, and a small rubber
syringe, as surgical instruments; put these in my
pocket, with strings attaching them to my belt; got
on my Shaker bonnet, and with a large blanket shawl
and tin cup, was on board with Georgie, an hour before
the boat left.

It had brought a load of wounded from Belle Plain;
some were still on board, and suffering intensely
from thirst, and hard, dry dressings. It was
a hot day, and we both went to work giving drinks of
water, wetting wounds, and bathing hot heads and hands.
As Georgie passed the foot of the cabin stairs, Miss
Dix was coming down, and called to her, saying:

“What are you doing here?”

She made no reply, but passed on to her work, when
the irate lady turned to where I was drawing water
from a cooler, and asked, in a tone of high displeasure: